A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
